Animal Behavior: Innate and Learned Behaviors for Survival and Reproduction

1. Ch. 40 Review Names the biomes labeled a-f in the climograph.

2. Ch. 39b Warm-Up • What is something that you can do that you have been able to do since birth? • What is one behavior that you learned by watching someone else? • List some ways that animals communicate. • Define: • Circadian rhythms • Pheromones • Learned behaviors • Imprinting • Associative learning • Classical conditioning • Operant conditioning

3. Ch. 39b Warm-Up • What is the difference between proximate and ultimate causes of behavior? • Explain the difference between kinesis and taxis. • What are the 4 common modes of animal communication? • Define: • Foraging • Sexual Selection • Monogamous • Polygamous • Polygyny • Polyandry • Altruism • Inclusive fitness • Kin selection

4. Ch. 39b Warm-Up • What do you think is the advantage for a species to be: • Monogamous? • Polygamous? • Describe an example of when you have participated in reciprocal altruism.

5. Chapter 39bAnimal Behavior

6. You Must Know: How behaviors are the result of natural selection How innate and learned behaviors increase survival and reproductive fitness How organisms use communication to increase fitness The role of altruism and inclusive fitness in kin selection

7. Introduction • Ethology: study of animal behavior • Behavior: what an animal does and how it does it • Both genetic & environmental factors • Essential for survival and reproduction • Subject to natural selection over time

8. Understanding behavior • Proximate cause: “how” a behavior occurs or is modified • Ultimate cause: “why” a behavior in context of natural selection A courting pair of East Asian red-crowned cranes.

9. BEHAVIOR: A male stickleback fish attacks other male sticklebacks that invade its nesting territory. PROXIMATE CAUSE: The red belly of the intruding male acts as a sign stimulus that releases aggression in a male stickleback. ULTIMATE CAUSE: By chasing away other male sticklebacks, a male decreases the chance that eggs laid in his nesting territory will be fertilized by another male.

10. Innate behaviors: developmentally fixed and are not learned • Fixed action patterns (FAPs):sequence of unlearned acts that are unchangeable and usually carried to completion • Triggered by sign stimulus • Ensures that activities essential to survival are performed correctly without practice • Eg. goose & egg

11. Sign stimuli in a classic fixed action pattern

12. Directed Movements • Kinesis: simple change in activity or turning rate in response to a stimulus • Taxis: automatic movement, oriented movement +/- from stimulus (eg. phototaxis, chemotaxis, geotaxis) Kinesis increases the chance that a sow bug will encounter and stay in a moist environment. Positive rheotaxis keeps trout facing into the current, the direction from which most food comes.

13. Migration • Regular, long-distance change in location • Environmental cues: sun, stars, earth’s magnetic field, landmarks

14. Circadian Rhythm: internal biological clock • More on Clock Genes: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/inheritance/clockgenes/ The circadian clock in the hamster brain signals a change in coat color according to season by releasing the hormone melatonin. The Suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) region is located in the hypothalamus of the brain. The SCN sends signals throughout the body in response to dark and light. Plants can have two internal clocks: one sensitive to light and the other sensitive to temperature

15. Signal: stimulus that causes a change in behavior; basis of animal communication • Pheromones– chemicals emitted by members of one species that affect other members of the species (eg. Queen bee, fruit fly, fish, termites, trees, humans) • Visual signals – eg. Warning flash of white of a mockingbird's wing • Tactile(touch) – eg. Male fruit fly taps female fly • Auditory signals – screech of blue jay or song of warbler Courtship behavior of fruit flies

16. Honeybee dance language • Used to inform other bees about distance and direction of travel to food sources

17. Learned behaviors: behaviors that are modified based on specific experiences

18. Types of Learning • Habituation: loss of responsiveness to stimuli that convey little or no information • Simple form of learning • Imprinting: learning + innate components • Limited to sensitive period in life, generally irreversible • ie. Lorenz’ imprinting in greylag geese

19. BEHAVIOR: Young geese follow and imprint on their mother. PROXIMATE CAUSE: During an early, critical developmental stage, the young geese observe their mother moving away from them and calling. ULTIMATE CAUSE: On average, geese that follow and imprint on their mother receive more care and learn necessary skills, and thus have a greater chance of surviving than those that do not follow their mother.

20. Captive breeding programs for endangered species must provide proper imprinting models Pilot wearing crane suit acts as a surrogate parent to teach young whooping cranes a migration route

21. 3. Spatial Learning • Cognitive Map: internal representation of spatial relationship among objects in an animal’s surroundings Birds use spatial maps to relocate nut caches

22. Some organisms move in response to a recognized object or environmental cue, a landmark.

23. 4. Associative Learning: ability to associate one stimulus with another (eg. monarchs = foul taste) A. Classical conditioning: arbitrary stimulus associated with particular outcome (eg. Pavlov’s dogs: salivate with ringing bell)

24. B. Operant conditioning: another type of associative learning • Trial-and-error learning • Associate its own behavior with reward or punishment

25. 5. Cognition: process of knowing that involves awareness, reasoning, recollection, judgment • Problem-solving behavior relies on cognition

26. 6. Social learning: learning by observing others Vervet monkeys learning correct use of alarm calls.

27. Examples of learned animal behavior • Nut-cracking crow (2:16) • TED Talk: Amazing intelligence of crows (11:34) • Chimpanzee problem solving (1:02) • Chimpanzee problem solving by cooperation (2:14)

28. Foraging: food-obtaining behavior • Recognize, search for, capturing, and consuming food • Minimize costs / Maximize benefits

29. Energy costs and benefits in foraging behavior

30. Mating Behavior & Mate Choice • Sexual selection: seeking and attracting mates, choosing and competing for mates

32. Sexual selection • Ornaments correlate in general with health and vitality

33. Agonistic behavior: threats, rituals, and sometimes combat; settles disputes over resources (mates)

34. Behaviors can be directed by genes • Certain behaviors in prairie voles are under relatively strong genetic control • ADH (vasopressin) triggers pair-bond formation and aggression by male voles

35. Differences in oxytocin (a hormone) receptors in 2 species of voles • Monogamous prairie voles vs. promiscuous montane voles High oxytocin levels in prairie voles Low oxytocin levels in montane voles

36. Video: Zebra Finch Parents Tell Eggs: It’s Hot Outside

37. Altruistic social behavior • Altruism = selfless behavior • Reduce individual fitness but increase fitness of others in population • i.e. bee societies; naked mole rats • Inclusive fitness: total effect of producing own offspring (pass on genes) + helping close relatives • Kin selection: type of natural selection; altruistic behavior enhances reproductive success of relatives

38. What does this mean? Explain. • Geneticist J.B.S. Haldane: “I won’t lay down my life for one brother, but I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.”

39. Review Question Natural selection favors behaviors that increase survival and reproductive behaviors. For each of the following types of behaviors, describe an example in nature, and justify how this behavior is adaptive. • Innate behavior • Learned behavior • Cooperative behavior • Chemical signals